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5.8.06

Terrible result in friendly game

It was a really bad day. Liverpool’s preparation for the next season took a major blow as they were demolished 5 – 0 by Bundesliga side, Mainz in front of a capacity crowd at the Bruchweg Stadium. The score at the break was 0 – 0.

IT's important to mention that this setback comes only five days before Liverpool’s opening qualifying match in this season’s Champion’s league against Maccabi Haifa.

As we know, coach Rafa Benitez began the match with a strong line – up that included star England midfielder Steven Gerrard, striker Peter Crouch and their off – season signings in Jermaine Pennant and Craig Bellamy.

There was no score at the break. However, as soon as manager Benitez made wholesale changes to his team so as to rest many of his first squad before Wednesday’s all – important Champions League match as well as Sunday’s Super Cup (Charity Shield) encounter against Premiership champions Chelsea FC, the wheels came off in dramatic style.

In fact, Markus Feulner started the damage for Mainz, scoring in the first minute of the second period and goals from Tobias Damm, Ranisav Jovanovic, Chadli Amri and Fatmir Pupalovic completed an emphatic triumph for the largely unfashionable Bundesliga team.

According to the reports, Benitez said that he thought that they had made too many basic mistakes. They would be analysing why so many things went wrong in the hope of rectifying them before Wednesday when he hoped that they would indeed be far better.